


Rebecca's Story

by Beth Harker (chiana606), chiana606



Category: Tanz der Vampire - Steinman/Kunze
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 12:01:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/Beth%20Harker, https://archiveofourown.org/users/chiana606/pseuds/chiana606
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfred comforts Rebecca in the wake of Sarah's departure, and learns some startling secrets about the Chagal family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rebecca's Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valancy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valancy/gifts).



There was no blazing fire to warm the inn. The doors and windows had been closed and firmly bolted shut but the cold howling wind outside found its way in anyway, leaving Alfred to wonder if other more sinister things would be able to get in as well. Hadn't he read somewhere that they were able to turn into mist? He shivered. The vampires he'd seen had been all too solid -- solid and clumsy in the case of Mr. Chagal, far too graceful to be real in the case of the Count, but all of them too substantial to dissolve at will into a wisp of nothing, certainly...

Alfred shook himself. He was trying to arrange the contents of the Professor's vampire hunting kit so that everything would be cataloged and accounted for and the most important items would be within easy reach in case of emergency. The only problem was that he kept getting distracted. It was the easiest thing in the world to be carried away by reverie and spend minute after minute staring at the walls or his hands or the emptiness of the hearth.

Taking a deep breath he forced himself to look at the items that he'd spread out upon the table. There were about five wooden stakes, which were both the clunkiest and the most important items he would be carrying. It'd probably be best to place them at a slight diagonal in the bag, since they were so long. He wasn't sure if he'd rather have the pointed ends facing the opening (where they could accidentally jab anyone who decided to undo the clasps) or facing the bottom (where they were liable to poke holes in the cheap leather). It was the sort of thing that he should have taken into consideration before, but then he'd never believed in vampires before, and there was nothing to do now but scramble to catch up with their reality.

Finally he settled wrapping clothing and socks around the sharpest bits of the stakes. Though he was reasonably pleased with this solution he soon got a reminder of just how vast their problems were, and how it would take more than a bit of clever ingenuity to solve them.

The wail that sounded above Alfred was not the wind. He jumped to his feet and started to rush up to the second floor of the inn, and then rushed back just as quickly as he realized that he'd forgotten to take the stake that he'd just arranged so nicely. Then he and the stake ran up the stairs sock blunted end and all.

From the sounds that Rebecca Chagal had been making, Alfred had fully expected to find her under attack by one of the blood sucking fiends that had so plagued her family. He threw open the door to her bedroom before he could even think to be afraid, brandished his weapon, and found himself face to face with a very pitiful sight indeed.

There was no vampire to be seen, only a distraught woman sobbing messily into a white dress that Alfred assumed must have belonged to Sarah.

The adrenaline that had rushed through Alfred as he raced up to the room had been a powerful thing, but it left him just as quickly as it had came and he found his legs shaking under him, his hands trembling as he held the stake. Though he had a sinking feeling that if there had been a vampire he would not have been able to carry out the fight against it, he wasn't sure if the sight before him was much better. He had no idea what to say or do.

Rebecca did not seem to have taken any notice of him in her grief. Alfred was glad. He placed the stake quietly and carefully just outside the door, remembering how very distraught the poor woman had been when they'd wanted to use it on her husband; Professor Abronsius might have disagreed, considering the new monster her refusal had created, but it wasn't the kind of thing that Alfred wanted to remind her of.

Alfred made his way to the bed where Rebecca was sitting, and sat down beside her. He still didn't know what to say to her, but he had to try to say something. His hands fumbled for his handkerchief while his mind fumbled for some kind and comforting words that would set her mind at ease. The former was found and handed over to her before he managed to locate the latter.

"You mustn't worry so," Alfred said at last, his hands falling light as snowflakes upon the poor woman's shoulders.

"I mustn't worry," Rebecca repeated with a sniffle and a scoff. "How do you say such things? My Yoine is dead and gone -- worse than dead and gone! And my only daughter off to join him... to join them."

She dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief that Alfred had given her. It seemed like a strangely delicate gesture from this lady who Alfred had only associated with coarseness in the short time he'd known her. The image was shattered when she blew her nose noisily, dissolving once again into sobs.

"No, no..." Alfred tried, his voice gentle and a little desperate. "We won't let that happen. We're going to find her before they can bi-- do anything to hurt her, I promise."

"She was our only child," Rebecca continued, heedless of Alfred's words. "The only one who survived. There were three before her, boys, each stillborn. I always believed that they were punishing me, but then Sarah came and was so sweet and beautiful, a perfect little blessing. Would that she had been a boy -- a boring ugly little boy. Perhaps then they would have let her be."

"I'm sorry," Alfred said, uncomfortable with this confession, and even more uncomfortable with the sudden pang of curiosity he felt -- who could have been trying to punish Rebecca Chagal, and what for?

"You should be," Rebecca spat back. "If they hadn't taken her from me you would have, isn't that so? You would have run away with her and not even left a note to let me know what you had done. And what then? How would I even know that she was among the living?"

"I wouldn't have..." Alfred started, though he wondered if he really would have. It was true enough that he'd meant to steal Sarah away, but surely he would have remembered to contact her family, once they were somewhere far off and married and safe from their interference and... Alfred flushed guiltily. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't thinking of you or your husband, before..."

"You weren't," Rebecca said with a little nod. "You think an old married woman like me doesn't know anything about men or what goes on in those minds of yours."

"I didn't..." Something in the look that Rebecca shot Alfred silenced him.

"You think that I don't know anything of the monsters that have taken Sarah."

Again, the curiosity took Alfred, and more than that a sense of urgency.

"What do you know?" Alfred asked, taking Rebecca's wrinkled hand in a gesture that felt much more natural than he would have expected it to just a few minutes before.

Rebecca gave a short laugh and seemed as though she would not speak. Then her dark eyes met Alfred's... odd, how they were just the same as Sarah's. Something in Alfred's gaze must have inspired confidence in her, for she continued.

"Only that... that the vampires lie worse than any mortal man could. When you're young and beautiful they promise you every happiness in the world. They pretend to offer you a choice -- a choice, but if you don't defend yourself in every way possible they come for you and take you against your will, or else take everyone you love the moment your back is turned."

"Have they taken others then? Others who were dear to you?"

"Three sisters. One friend. A suitor -- I was going to turn him down anyway. Didn't you think it strange that we kept Sarah so alone?"

Alfred shivered and watched Rebecca's hands so that he wouldn't have to watch her face. She was wringing his now sodden handkerchief over and over.

"It's a game to them, like a cat playing with a mouse. Usually they just take their victims you see, but sometimes they need something more to interest them. None of them are truly happy, you know, or they wouldn't need to do it. They can't love or work, or be busy and productive. They're hungry and lonely always, no matter how many lives they take. Maybe you are better than them. Thousands of Sarahs wouldn't be enough for them. You might be satisfied with one. My Yoine was..." Rebecca had to wipe her eyes again, though she let out another bitter laugh. "For a time. Before I got old and fat... and even then, in his way..."

"I wouldn't... I mean to say, I'll love Sarah, always, no matter how old she gets. Even if we live to be more than a hundred..."

"Oh, don't say that. Don't even talk about living so long. It's the wrong kind of thing to think of."

"Eighty then. I don't know, just please trust me to rescue her and know that I'll always love her after, no matter what happens."

Rebecca placed her hand on his cheek.

"You're a nice young man," she said, in a defeated voice as if she fully expected Alfred to fail.

"Then... then you must try to believe in me and be happy. I might have to take Sarah away after we get her out of the castle if the fiends are as persistent as you say, but we'll write to you after, and send for you. I won't just steal her away, I promise. You can come and live with us."

"Perhaps I must. There's no other hope."

"Alfred! Alfred get down here!" The professor's voice sounded from somewhere below him. "What is all this mess on the table?"

Alfred jumped up and would have run out the door, but he paused to look back at Rebecca.

"Go on then," she said. "Go hurry up and help the old man."

Alfred just stood there for a long time, before going over and giving Rebecca a hug. It felt clumsy -- a bit stiff, not quite as comforting as he meant it to be -- but he knew that it was the right thing to do.

"I'll bring her back to you," Alfred said.

"I'll believe it when I see your letter," Rebecca said. She turned back to Sarah's dress, which she had abandoned on the bed, and smoothed it with care. "In the meantime I'll pray for you both."


End file.
